Our move to Forest Hill over a year ago came with a lovely garden. And we have been enjoying the birdsong at dawn and dusk, as well as watching our feathered friends come down to feed (gorge) on our bird seed and peanuts. But other than those loud green parakeets, and the odd pigeon I have no idea what I’m looking at. I just can’t tell my tits from my swifts.
So can you all help me out? Can you identify, with a picture those birds commonly seen in Forest Hill? Can we create our own ornithology? Let’s make Audubon proud!
Ah Wrens. I think those are the ones I see in abundance. They flit from the cover of my overgrown clematis to the bird feeder and back again. Lovely little things.
It’s easy to identify wrens by their hoppity bouncing flight, and the fact their little tails are always turned right up. They are also incredibly loud for their size.
I guess useful for me as well would be how to attract some of these into the garden. Now I just buy a bog standard feeder wlith bog standard feed. Do some of these need special stuff?
outside the garden, but just down the road on the Pool River there are ducks, moorhen, kingfisher, a grey heron (hangs out by river near Bellingham Play Park) and yesterday saw a smaller heron type, a rather beautiful Little Egret, a comparative newcomer to UK, wading at the confluence of the Pool and the Ravensbourne.
I am planning to put a swift box on my house, as my street is a bit of a swift hotspot, but numbers are declining - often due to roof works & loft conversions destroying nesting sites. It’s really lovely seeing them all swooping around in the summer. A basic box is only £15 and then you need to fix it up just under the roof line.
You won’t get them on the bird feeder though - they eat flying insects!
North, west or east facing walls are best as otherwise it can get too hot inside the boxes, however there are white painted boxes which can deflect the sun’s rays but these are a bit more expensive. Placing the boxes under the eaves helps shade them too.
Just to qualify I am not a swift expert! I am quoting from Rebecca’s guide - she has put a very comprehensive guide to swift boxes on her Facebook page.
All the local parks are full of them. You’ll see them in gardens too depending on the trees you have. I see them stopping and passing go through my garden quite often. Before my cherry tree died they spent a lot of time in it, eating the leaves.
What a great idea!
I have window feeders attached to my bedroom window and get lots of birds coming up to the window. It took a long time for them to know it was there - like 6 months. But now I can get to see them up close. We get robins coming, blue tits, great tits, parakeets, starlings, wood pigeons, jays, woodpeckers, goldfinches - it is a feast!
I have also seen on more than one occasion now red kites flying over my house. I was looking for the swifts and three red kites flew over!!!
Other birds in the garden I see are blackcaps and robins. I wish wish wish there were owls. House sparrows are also making a comeback.
